MSI's Eco motherboards let owners fine-tune power consumption

While we Americans are still sleeping off our Thanksgiving celebrations, MSI has unveiled some Skylake-compatible updates to its Eco series of motherboards: the H170M Eco, B150M Eco, and H110M Eco. MSI says this trio of Micro-ATX mobos sips power without giving up the performance or features of their non-Eco brethren. All three boards pack Intel Gigabit Ethernet and MSI's Audio Boost features.

These three boards look strikingly similar, apparently separated only by the PCH used. Each Eco motherboard comes with MSI's Eco Genie and Eco Center Pro utility. This tool allows users to turn off specific features and components to save energy. MSI supplies three power-saving presets, and users can further configure those profiles to their liking. Interestingly, some LEDs—even those that are usually always on, like power and Ethernet—can be turned off entirely.

MSI says that systems based on the Eco boards won't be hamstrung by those power-saving features. Each of the three profiles still allows the CPU to run at stock speeds. The company says these boards are extra-durable, too, thanks to their "Military Class 4" components.